Posted on 08/24/2010 6:28:46 AM PDT by TSgt
NEW ORLEANS (WALA) - THE BIG EASY'S BIG DILEMMA
Some say you can never go home. Sadly in the five years since Hurricane Katrina that saying has been true for more than 100,000 people in New Orleans. Affordable housing continues to be one of the most contentious issues facing the Big Easy.
Even in the days after Katrina, as people were plucked from roofs, there was little doubt that it would take many years to rebuild New Orleans. But the reality of five years later is that many people haven't been able to return.
They've been left behind as the Big Easy transitions into a post-Katrina future, but they are trying to be heard. There probably aren't many cities in the U.S. where a meeting of the housing authority is packed. But this is New Orleans, a city facing a housing crisis like no other, pitting developers against the communities they're rebuilding. Reverend Lionel Davis Sr. is fighting for the people of his community.
"Many of the communities are going to suffer major changes as far as being identified as a traditional neighborhood that you grew up in," Davis said.
TOO FEW AND TOO EXPENSIVE
Reverend Davis says developers are building mixed use, mixed income properties on the sites of the old developments destroyed by Katrina and they are pricing out thousands of people who want to return. The reverend calls it nothing short of a land grab.
The new communities that are being built, like Columbia Parc in St. Bernard parish, are quite nice, but what folks are saying is they're not building enough. Columbia Parc, will eventually house 700 families. It replaces housing units where 1,500 families once lived. Resident Cantrelle Pichon says the lack of affordable housing has scattered nearly everyone she knows.
"It's a really sad story that people can't come back to their community that they were born," Pichon said. "Where their children were born."
AFFORDABLE HOUSING NEEDED FOR RECOVERY
Reverend Davis says for people to return they need the subsidized housing to get back on their feet, especially since there are few jobs, but what he's seeing is lower-income African-Americans being priced out of the communities where they grew up.
"Without a lot of community activist involvement, it's going to be a depression in the mindset of the people who are going to feel as though it was only an opportunity to deal with de-gentrification of a population of people," Davis said.
Reverend Davis says with community involvement and time, the situation can be improved
"The projections are it's going to get better. The question is how long will the people have to wait? To have something they can afford and have neighborhoods they want to come back to," Davis said.
Currently, more than 5,000 families are on the waiting list for traditional public housing. Another 30,000 families are on the list for housing vouchers.
Absolutely Alice in Wonderland! People who want to live in free accomodations without jobs seem to feel that they can choose where they live?! Please, someone, Gov Jindal, Mayor Landrieu, tell these people that this is not the new reality.
Other peoples money ran out.
You have that right.
You got that pegged just right. When you ride into New Orleans it looks like a slum, abandoned houses, etc. Here on the Ms Coast the houses were just sucked out into the gulf, still just lots along the coast drive, far different from New Orleans.....
You’re comments are pretty callous for those of us who have to live in or around Houston and Austin.............we don’t vote liberal, but we must live here anyway.
You’re comments are pretty callous for those of us who have to live in or around Houston and Austin.............we don’t vote liberal, but we must live here anyway.
Both cities have large Mexican and black populations——
You’re comments are pretty callous for those of us who have to live in or around Houston and Austin.............we don’t vote liberal, but we must live here anyway.
Both cities have large Mexican and black populations——
Did ya get my message? LOL!
Sorry about the triple post—didn’t mean to do that.
funny how we spent opver a half million dollars for every man, woman and child on NOLA during the hurricane, and the only response we get from these folks is “it ain’t enough!”.
Bush got it all wrong. he should have gien every family a quarter million dollars, and closed the place down. we would have saved a ton of money, we wouldn’t have the problem of keeping a city below sea level dry, and nobody would be expecting us to shell out even more!
Lived there for a year in the Audobon Park area, that was ok, but the rest is third world.
Agreed. And what does he expect? If you build new housing, the price will be higher then the old housing. If they want cheap housing they can move to other areas of the country where there is cheap housing. Why should we subsidize housing for people because they can’t live in the neighborhood they grew up in? That is not a rational argument.
If these people have no jobs it is even easier for them to pick up and find cheaper housing with jobs.
Let the housing market play out in New Orleans. Developers will build there as long as the price is reasonable for them to do so. And the price will be reasonable when demand to live there goes up. If that doesn’t happen then so be it.
One thing I can say for New Orleans. I think they have the best food in the entire country. I’d be sad knowing that Mother’s was gone.
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